Heroes of the Storm PTR Patch Notes — September 18, 2017

This patch also includes changes that will be released to live servers later this week. You can find those notes here.

Heroes of the Storm PTR Notes —September 18, 2017

Our next Heroes of the Storm patch has just arrived to the Public Test Realm and will be available for playtesting until September 25. During this time, we kindly request your assistance in trying out some of the new content it contains before we officially release the patch to the live version of Heroes. Just like last time, if you encounter any bugs or other issues during your PTR play sessions, please stop by the PTR Bug Report forum to let us know about your experiences.

PTR Note: While elements of this event may be visible on the Public Test Realm, any progress or rewards earned during PTR testing will not transfer to the live version of the game when this patch is officially released next week.

New Hero: Ana

As a founding member of Overwatch and one of the world's best snipers, Ana Amari uses her skills to protect the innocent. Though she went MIA after losing her eye, Ana's sense of duty and responsibility has brought her back to the fight.

Toss a Grenade at the target area. Allied Heroes hit are healed for 175 Health and receive 25% increased healing for 3 seconds. Enemies hit take 60 damage and receive 100% less healing for 2 seconds.

Sleep Dart (E)

Fire a dart that Sleeps the first enemy Hero hit, rendering them unable to act for 3 seconds. Sleep’s effects end instantly if the target takes damage after the first 0.5 seconds.

Cannot be used on Vehicles.

Heroic Abilities

Nano Boost (R)

Instantly boost an allied Hero, restoring 200 Mana. For the next 8 seconds, they gain 30% Spell Power and their Basic Ability cooldowns recharge 150% faster.

Cannot be used on Ana.

Eye of Horus (R)

Assume a sniping position, gaining the ability to fire up to 8 specialized rounds with unlimited range. Rounds hit the first allied or enemy Hero or enemy Structure in their path. Allies are healed for 300 and enemies are damaged for 175. Deals 50% damage to Structures.

Battlegrounds

Throughout the match a Control Point will activate at one of three locations, beginning in a neutral capture state.

Once a player stands on the control point without any enemies, they gain control progress for their team at a steady rate.

If an enemy enters the point, the point becomes contested and will not gain or lose control progress.

When a team's control progress hits 100, they gain control of the point.

As long as a team has control of the point, they gain victory progress at a steady rate.

Victory progress does not decay for any reason.

Overtime: When a point is at 99% victory progress about to tick over to 100%, it will stay at 99% and enter the overtime state if there are any enemy heroes on the point or the point just flipped from the enemy's control.

When a team's victory progress hits 100%, they win the event. The control point deactivates and a two-person Triglav Protector spawns on the point for the winning team after a short delay.

Triglav Protector

Pilot Abilities

Charge (Q)

After .5 seconds, charge to the target unit's current location and deal damage in an area. Deals double damage to structures and minions. 8 second cooldown

Rocket Fist (W)

Launch a Rocket Fist that impacts the first Hero or Structure hit. Roots Heroes for 1 second. Disables Structures for 2 seconds. Destroys all minions in its path. 14 second cooldown.

Shield Emitter (E)

Grants 25 armor to vehicle and grants a Shield to all nearby allies equal to 25% of their maximum health. 16 second cooldown.

Gunner Abilities

Particle Cannon (Q)

Enables the Particle Cannon ability and increases its range over 3 seconds. Reactivate to launch an orb dealing damage in an area. 5 sec cooldown.

Gatling Cannon (W)

Fires a barrage of cannon fire at the location of your cursor for 4 seconds. 11 second cooldown.

Scorching Laser (E)

A laser quickly cuts a line across the terrain dealing light damage. A secondary explosion triggers 0.75 seconds later for heavy damage. 10 second cooldown.

New Sandbox Custom Game: Volskaya Foundry

A sandbox version of Volskaya Foundry has been added to Custom Games.

Much like Sandbox version of Cursed Hollow, this Battleground allows up to 10 players at once to use a variety of “cheats” to test the limits of their Heroes, and the Battleground.

Sandbox Volskaya Foundry also features a “Triglav Protector” button, which allows a player to immediately spawn a Protector at their Hero’s location.

Vehicles

All vehicles, including the Dragon Knight, Garden Terror, and Triglav Protector are now Unstoppable.

Developer Comment: Prior to this patch, crowd control effects on vehicles were reduced by 50%. Initially, displacement effects affecting vehicles were not reduced at all. Over time, we’ve made the decision to make some abilities unable to target vehicles. As our hero roster grew, so did the amount of special rules associated with vehicle interactions. Instead of continuing to maintain a list of special interactions, we’ve opted to simplify the behavior and make vehicles Unstoppable. To compensate for the increased vehicle strength, we’ve also looked at each vehicle’s balance numbers.

Nova

Increases the cast range, sight range, and duration of Holo Decoy by 100%

Level 7

Anti-Armor Shells (Passive)

Added functionality:

Basic Attacks also decrease the physical Armor of your target by 10 for 3 seconds

Level 13

Psionic Efficiency (Q)

Range increase from 10 to 15%

Developer Comment: We made a few changes to our resident Ghost - mostly targeted at fixing some under-performing talents. Alongside that, we figured that we may as well point Anti-Armor Shells, you know, into a direction more befitting its name.

Developer Comment: These changes are designed to increase the power of Insight and Transcendence by shifting more of Kharazim's healing power pie into them. We want to encourage the same active gameplay that Iron Fist Kharazim's have, but increasing healing and utility instead of damage when the other Talents are chosen.

Rehgar

Abilities

Chain Heal (Q)

Cast range reduced from 8 to 6

Bounce range reduced from 8 to 7

Primary target healing reduced from 334 to 250

Secondary bounce healing increased from 167 to 250

Developer Comment: We'd like to make positioning for Rehgar's Chain Heal matter more, so that we reward players and teams that can get the most of it. To do this we're reducing the range and radius of the heal, while also making the jumps a greater portion his overall healing.

Developer Comment: To her credit, Johanna has not needed many changes since she was first released into the Nexus. Her talent pick and win rates have been fair compared to most heroes, and she has almost always had a place in the meta. While she is not in dire need of changes, we saw an opportunity to spruce up her talent tree and give her some more interesting options to choose from on various tiers.

Collection

Collection Adjustments

Loot Chests

Loot Chests purchased via the Loot tab will now only grant Rare Loot Chests, rather than Normal Loot Chests.

Please note: This only applies to Loot Chests purchased after this patch is applied to the live version of the game in each region. Normal Loot Chests the player already owns will not convert to Rare Loot Chests.

Rewards

The Celestial Steed Mount has been removed and replaced by the Celestial Raptor as a reward for making a purchase of Gems.

The 1,000 Gem reward for reaching level 5 has been removed.

Please note: Veteran players who have not logged in following the release of Heroes 2.0 earlier this year will no longer be able to claim this reward once this patch is applied to the live version of the game in each region.

Bundles

The Welcome Bundle has been removed from the Collection.

New Skins

Ana

Midnight Ana

Burnished Ana

Sunset Ana

Twilight Ana

Medic Ana

Shrike

Agent Shrike

Aquamarine Shrike

Rescue Shrike

Stealth Shrike

Varian

Commandant Varian

Grand Commandant Varian

Recon Commandant Varian

Tempered Commandant Varian

Tundra Commandant Varian

Anub’arak

Deatholme Underking Anub’arak

Auriel

Kuroi Sakura Auriel

Sora Sakura Auriel

Azmodan

Lucky Azmodunk

Cassia

Aranoch Warmatron Cassia

Askari Warmatron Cassia

Dehaka

D.Haka

D.Va

Camo D.Va

Global Pro D.Va

Perfect Pro D.Va

X-Treme D.Va

Lúcio

Prime Ribbit Lúcio

Rosa Ribbit Lúcio

Nova

Moonlight Widowmaker Nova

Tracer

Hot Rod Turbo Tracer

Valeera

Emerald Bloodfang Valeera

Moonstone Bloodfang Valeera

Zarya

Golden Cyberdemon Zarya

Restored Cyberdemon Zarya

Mounts

Illidan’s Nightmare

Wretched Illidan’s Nightmare

Crimson Illidan’s Nightmare

Invisible Horse

Celestial Raptor – As mentioned above, this Mount is awarded upon making a purchase of Gems.

Bug Fixes

Fixed a number of typo and tooltip errors across several aspects of the game.

Art

Zeratul: Zeratul’s mask will no longer stretch and bend oddly during Hero Select or in the Collection on low graphic settings.

Battlegrounds

Blackheart’s Bay: Fixed an issue that could allow Medivh and Falstad to enter and stand in certain areas inside the enemy Hall of Storms.

Haunted Mines: The right-side team’s top Keep can no longer hit enemy Heroes who path into the Gate.

Try Mode: The You Want Axe? Talent will now correctly grant bonus Basic Attack range after using the Complete Quest button.

Try Mode: Garrosh will no longer continue to benefit from the Warbreaker Talent after clicking Reset Talents.

Try Mode: Toggling off Minion spawns will no longer cause AI Heroes to wait at their Fort Gates indefinitely.

Heroes, Abilities, and Talents

Alarak: Rite of Rak’shir will no longer be placed on a dead target if it was cast just as that target took fatal damage.

Diablo: Fixed an issue that could prevent Diablo from traveling with his Shadow Charge target if another Hero stood between Diablo and his target.

D.Va: Using Boosters to smash destructible barrels on Blackheart’s Bay will no longer place the Ability on full cooldown.

D.Va: Fixed an issue that could cause D.Va to inconsistently activate Healing Wells while using Boosters.

D.Va: Dying while casting Call Mech will no longer create an untargetable Mech that persists until D.Va respawns.

D.Va: Mech deaths that occur while no enemy Heroes are nearby will now correctly grant XP and update D.Va’s death count on the in-game score screen.

D.Va: A Nuke’s area of effect indicator will no longer disappear if D.Va finishes channeling Nuke in the same moment that her Mech is destroyed.

Garrosh: Wrecking Ball will no longer end Rehgar’s Ghost Wolf.

Garrosh: Using Body Check with the Brute Force Talent on a Boss no longer causes the Healing debuff icon to appear next its Health bar.

Garrosh: Bloodthirst will no longer cause Garrosh to automatically retarget his Basic Attacks to the closest enemy.

Garrosh: Into the Fray will no longer place targeting indicators on attacking Hydralisks on Braxis Holdout.

Genji: Fixed an issue that could prevent Fort attacks from Slowing Genji if he has Dodge charges remaining, and there is another Genji on the opposing team.

Genji: Fixed an issue that could cause Dodge to behave inconsistently against Sylvanas’ and Lunara’s Basic Attacks.

Illidan: Abilities that can interrupt Dive, like Li-Ming’s Wave of Force, will no longer cause Illidan to become briefly unresponsive.

Jaina: Fixed an issue that prevented Jaina from casting Water Elemental if unpathable terrain existed between Jaina and the desired casting location.

Jaina: Fixed a typo in the Icy Veins tooltip which incorrectly stated that the Talent provided a 300% cooldown recharge rate , rather than 200%. This only affected the tooltip, and the Talent's functionality has not changed.

Johanna: Abilities that block pathing, such as Sonya’s Arreat Crater and Tassadar’s Force Wall, will no longer block Johanna’s movement during Falling Sword.

Leoric: Fixed an issue that could prevent the Mithril Mace Talent from granting bonus Attack Speed for Minion and Hero kills.

Leoric: Percentage damage dealt by the Spectral Leech Talent will now properly count as Ability damage rather than Basic Attack damage.

Probius: Floating Combat Text will now indicate the amount of Shields granted to Probius by a Pylon after learning Shield Battery, rather than displaying zero for each tick.

Stukov: Abilities that move Heroes, like Alarak’s Telekinesis and Stiches’ Hook, no longer remove Weighted Pustule from the affected Hero.